Unofficial news and tips about Google

May 9, 2006

Listen To Pandora In Winamp

If you have the latest version of Winamp (namely, Winamp 5.32), you can add Pandora, a great online personalized radio, to Media Library so you can listen to the music without opening Pandora in a browser.

Close Winamp, then open this file in Notepad:C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\ml\ml_online.ini(change the location if you've installed Winamp elsewhere).

If you can't find the file mentioned look in C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Winamp\Plugins\ml (of course replace USERNAME with your username). I still cound't make it work though. It said to enable Activex controls which are enabled. Oh well...

great hack, however if you have the absolute latest version of winamp you will find that there are more than 6 online outlets installed. just find the last one, say 10, and paste the same code replacing the 7 with whatever your last number in the list is--follow that with the -1 value for the second ID...if you break it..just delete the .ini file, run winamp, and browse to online services--it will rebuild the file and you can try again! good luck!

Hey, Pandora.com just moved the mini player to another location and the hack doesn't work anymore. I tried to change the URL you gave to http://www.pandora.com?cmd=mini, this is the new location but nothing happens.

i did everything described in the article but it doesn´t work. where in the media library (i can see the link!!) can i login with my pandora account or how can i navigate and define the music i want to listen to in pandora? i just see the link in the playlist section of the media library!

Doing that kind of technical work (changing those notepad entries) is way over my head. I keep opening up that file C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\ml\ml_online.iniand replaced first the 10 then the 7 and Pandora will eventually come up in Microsoft IExplorer (I normally use Firefox)because in Winamp it says"New Location We're sorry, the minimized pandora player has moved. Please update your bookmark to http://www.pandora.com?cmd=mini"

Could someone please post an updated step by step solution to this for the latest Winamp?(I have version 5.32) I've spent many fruitless hours on this. I just hope to see the song titles in my taskbar! Thanks

Great tip! Thanks. I have a special interest in this as I have created a Wrapper Application for Pandora that runs Pandora in your system tray. Right-clicking on the tray icon will give you all the controls such as Pause/Play/Next/Vote etc

Thanks for the last 2 replies.Actually I tried that "Pandoras Box" which I had tried without success before and it seems to be working now. I haven't tried changing the Winamp file because I don't want to mess with it until I have to. Much thanks for the quick replies too!

I got this to work with no problem but I just wish there was a way to scroll around in the window because I can't see all of the page unless I enlarge the media library way bigger than I normally run it, anybody have any idea how I can include a couple scroll bars on the top and side

The advantage of doing this is that one needn't have a browser open? Is there something else? I always want info on the artists, etc. and usually have browsers open so perhaps this is not for me. Does StreamRipper work well with this setup, and perhaps that is the advantage?

to work with the new versions of winamp you have to add a new line, the GUID line, I have something like this in my file.ElementID10=11000ElementIcon10=11007ElementSubbed10=1ElementName10=PandoraElementURL10=http://www.pandora.com?cmd=miniElementGUID10={00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}

I tried everything to get this to work by changing the 11 and 12 value, the changed the 10... the way that worked for me using winamp 5.35 and firefox 2.0.0.4 was to change the 7 value lines only, I pasted the code above in place of all the '7' values and change the code pasted from the '11' value to '7' and it worked like a charm. in fact here's what I pasted maybe the whole file would help, I know I was looking for one: (BTW, if you can't find you ml_online.ini file you can change the file type from txt to all files and it's there

Just updated to a newer version and noticed it didn't load Pandora. I delete the contents of the file and let winamp regen it. Only had 7 elements so added Pandora as the 8th (instead of 11th). Now it works. By far the best plug-in for winamp.

ian's comment above worked for me. However I'm stuck with same problem many mention -- it just plays in the browser tab not through winamp's sound output. Anyone figure out a way to get Pandora to play through all speakers like Winamp does?

Right, this method. That's why I'm asking if there's another way ;-) For example, it might be possible to write a Firefox Add-on that pushes sound to all speakers. The issue I'm trying to solve is I'd like to listen to Pandora and have it play through all surround speakers, rather than just 2.

Wanted to remove the AOL crap as well, which is why I replaced Pandora there. Set both files as "Read-Only" launched Winamp and does not display. Either way I do it as described here or this way the Pandora option does not display...

1. open %appdata%\Winamp\plugins\ml\omServices2. create a new .ini file3. copy & paste the following into the file:[OnlineService]id=0000011000name=Pandoraurl=http://www.pandora.com?cmd=miniicon=11007subscribed=1legacy=1version=1

I actually found a great windows app on http://www.pandorasbanana.com/. This thing is awesome. Allows you to minimize pandora radio to your system tray with unlimited play and has a bunch of other cool features. My favorite is the option to startup with windows while minimized to your tray. I sound like a commercial Go internet radio!!

I got Winamp 5.552, and adding the online service following motaaaaaaaaaaa's instructions worked great. However, when I click on Pandora in Winamp, it start loading the page, and then gives me an error message (The URL could not be parsed).

ok look everyone calm down. really have you read about winamp have you checked with them? oh my god its simple.http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64973i was listening to pandora. winamp was open. i pressed Ctrl-L typed in "linein://" and hit Open (no quotes).Alt+D and i was done.

I tried that as well, and it didn't work. When I try the old way, I can get the pandora to show up under online services, and I click it to see the pandora page, but when the blue loading bar hits 100% I get an error that says the URL could not be parsed. Has anyone found a solution to that?

ok ok this might seem like a simple task but it isn't. Im running windows 7 64-bit and the file path is def not correct this is the path you need to go to ( C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Winamp\Plugins\ml ) in that directory u'll find ml_online.ini

In the file you'll see the elements are in numerical order, the last element should look something like this

ElementID9=-1maxbandwidth=350minbandwidth=1

just above that line hit enter and paste this in so it would look like this.